


Like a heartbeat drives you mad in the stillness of remembering what you had

by Stark616 (orphan_account)



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Trailer, Canon Compliant, Declarations of paternal love, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hurt Peter Quill, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Games, Parent Yondu Udonta, Peter Quill Feels, Peter watches Yondu die multiple times, Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Protective Yondu Udonta, Thanos takes control of Wanda, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 19:30:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13577445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Stark616
Summary: “They do that sometimes,” her father had said to her. Back when he was still alive. “They go tense--” He had lifted up his chin and tightened his shoulders. “And stare at the weapon until the trigger is pulled. Most of them run, however.”Then, looking at Stark the memory kept replaying in her head, distracting her from her job. Wanda had scowled and released him a bit earlier than she had planned. He had seen enough, anyway. With Peter Quill, things were much different. Peter was not the type of lynx her father had talked about.Peter had chosen to run.At least, the type of running that could be done in a vision.





	Like a heartbeat drives you mad in the stillness of remembering what you had

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not over Yondu's death, as you can see. So, what did I do? I wrote this. Enjoy and suffer please, because this gets pretty dark.

Wanda wasn’t meant to see this fear.

 

She wasn’t meant to see any of them, and yet she had. She had seen Stark’s; a horrific scene filled with so much pain that she could feel it on the tips of her fingers as she held him frozen, like a  _ рысь _ when it realized its fate. 

 

“They do that sometimes,” her father had told her. Back when he was still alive. “They go tense--” He had lifted up his chin and tightened his shoulders. “And stare at the weapon until the trigger is pulled. Most of them run, however.”

 

Then, looking at Stark the memory kept replaying in her head, distracting her from her job. Wanda had scowled and released him a bit earlier than she had planned. He had seen enough, anyway. 

 

With Peter Quill things were much different. Peter was not the type of lynx her father had talked about. 

 

Peter had chosen to run.

 

At least, the running that could be done in a vision. She watched intently as his eyes filled with liquid, threatening to burst. His agile hands shook, gripping the hems of his leather jacket. In front of him, stood a blue man and a blonde woman.  _ м _ _ ама и папа _ , she thought but didn’t dare to move her hands. Her stomach lurched slightly. She was stepping foot on prohibited turf.

 

“You seriously thought that wha’ I’d said was true?” The blue man slurred, amusement flashing vividly in his eyes.

 

Peter’s face contorted, yet the liquid did not spill. She hoped to dear god, that he would not surrender to the fear.  “What are you saying?” The ginger-haired guardian said breathy and quick, faint laughter twisting beside his words. He took a slight step forwards and as Wanda had expected, both the other adults took one back. 

 

“He means that you were ignorant, my little star lord,” the blonde woman began, voice soft as silk despite the harshness of her words. “You never meant a thing to him, not at all. And you never noticed it, didya?”

 

Even through the control of Thanos, Wanda managed to wince. She hoped never to have to show someone a fear as sensitive as this. She knew well what losing parents was like and now having to mock someone through their own was shaming.

 

Peter looked taken aback by the question, both of his eyes staring ahead as if he were doing mental math. His hands continued to shake. Bitter, itching silence dragged on for what seemed to be hours before the young man started working his jaw.

 

“This isn’t real,” he sputters. “I was just fighting Thanos--- you can’t be  _ here _ ,  _ I  _ can’t be here.” The guardian lets out a long breath before continuing and turning to the blue man. “You meant what you said,” he pointed an accusing finger towards him. “I probably got knocked out,” he whispers lowly, more to himself than to the other adults. “Unless I died, well--  _ oh shit. _ ”

 

“This here is as real as the fact that‘m fuckin’ dead,” the blue man answered. And then he was gone and the scene around them, a field filled with strange flowers, disappeared. 

 

They were now on a red planet-- bright, blue light illuminating the sky. There was a hint of static in Peter’s mind, hurting Wanda’s own as she struggled to continue and feed him the terror. Now the blonde woman was nowhere to be seen, the blue man once again standing in front of Peter with another man,  _ not _ blue, beside him.

 

“This is your fault, son.”

 

Peter’s eyes were no longer the dazzling green she had noticed when Tony first introduced him and his team. What was suppoused to be blue was now black, dark pools. The guardian’s body was quaking, genian ugly fear noticeable on his face as the non-blue man began to chuckle.  _ They look awfully familiar, their faces are also very alike, _ she thought to herself. 

 

“This man here, this  _ a-hole _ as you say, took you from me and brainwashed you with unnecessary things. I could not complete my expansion because of him, because you thought that he was your father instead of me,” the man explained as he lifted his hand, a tenclale of light following suit. “We could have been so much, Peter. This horrendous man could have lived, if it weren’t for you. But now that you’ve betrayed me because of the idiotic things he filled your head with, I have no choice but to kill him.”

 

Before Peter could start yelling, the stream of light curled around and into the blue man’s body, coming out through his chest with a loud, pain filled yelp through his lips.

 

“ _ Yondu!” _ Peter screamed, eyes still remaining a egregious ebony. The guardian ran towards  _ Yondu’s _ body, tears somehow managing to escape the abyss that were his eyes. The sobs ripped out of his throat sounded more than pained, as if this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

 

The thought made Wanda uneasy.

 

She watched him suffer, the man who had sent the light through the blue man laughing all the way. “I should have done this ages ago,” he started, a low growl to his voice. “I’ll let you and Yondu catch up in the short time it’ll take him to perish.” He raised his hand higher, the stream of light becoming larger and then began walking away. 

 

“Oh, god, oh fuck.  _ Dad _ , please-- don’t, don’t leave me again-- I didn’t mean to, this wasn’t what I wanted,” Peter babbled, lines of exhaustion and anguish forming around his eyes. His posture was no longer the carefree, relaxed hold he kept as he fought upside the avengers and his team as he reached out for Yondu, taking a hold of his shoulders. 

 

The blue man wheezed, blood spilling through his mouth. The light had speared through his flesh and organs, burning them. Death was certain. Yet, Peter did not stop talking or moving frantically in an attempt to save him. 

 

“Pete,” Yondu’s rough voice snapped the ginger-haired guardian out of the beginning of a frenzy. The young man stopped his movements, sobs still escaping him as he listened. “M’ sorry I didn’ do none of it right,” he gasps, eyes beginning to glaze over. “But I’m damn lucky you was my boy.”

 

“I know, but please- I  _ can’t---” _

 

“You gotta calm down, son. You’ve gotta stop that jackass and get to your friends,” the blue man explained, pain itching behind each word. It was obviously killing him faster, the more he continued to speak, and yet he made no move to stop. 

 

Peter seemed to notice right away what verbal communication was doing. He fumbled with the edges of Yondu’s jacket and brought him closer in a strange attempt at an embrace. “You’ve got to--- to stop talking, old man,” he gasps, voice breaking in little hitched noises. 

 

The blue man shakes his head with a pained groan. He tries to cover it up with a rough chuckle. “M’ not gonna waste precious time jus’ cause it’s hurtin’ me, boy. I ain’t one to do that and you knows it,” he whispers. “Now shut up and listen.”

 

Peter nodded his head quickly as if he wanted to give Yondu all the time he possibly could to talk. He remains still, arms thrown around the older man’s shoulders and legs tangling with his elevated limbs. The stream of light impaling Yondu’s body hums threatenly between them.

 

 “That’s mah boy,” the blue man praises as he slowly reaches upwards and pats the ginger on the back. The blood pouring down his throat is no longer a bother to him. He just wants to get things clear with his son. He coughs once-- even more red liquid pouring out of his lips- before continuing. “I don’ know how to put this cause yous also know I ain’t as soft as you and your friends are but, after I got you up and runnin’ on the ‘lector I started to feel somethin’. I kept trying to shove it back, I would take it out on yous cause I thought it were for the best. That  _ love _ you felt towards practically everythin’ that I tried to taunt outta ya, I think there was a point where ya managed to rub it off on me,” he let out a harsh chuckle, seemingly forced but at the same time genuine like the times where he had to unhook a ten-year-old Peter’s oversized ravager jacket from the edges of chairs and doors. “At first I wanted to shove you outta an airlock for it. It was turnin’ me soft before I could even work it offa me. I saw it as a threat. An’ look where we are now. It’s comin’ off of us like quantum fields. At leas’, that messed up kinda love we seemed to have-- you an’ me. I never gots to experience it myself since my own ma’ and pa sold me off when I was jus’ a youngin’. But I sure as hell know that this, what we has here, is as close as it fuckin’ gets.”

  
  


The sobs Peter had previously been making become much louder at the end of Yondu’s speech. Wanda feels her heart clench at the scene before her. The guardian’s sobs mix in with harsh screams, desperate and pleading. It’s then that she realizes Peter has fallen for the vision--- he thinks it’s real. 

 

Thanos squeezes her head harder, muscle crippling beneath his purple palm. She shudders with the agony of practically having her skull crushed and makes the vision go faster. He wants her to finish the damage. 

 

She has Yondu begin to cough up heaps of red sooner than she had intended to and does not give him the opportunity to gurgle out the three words left unsaid. Peter’s body gets ripped apart from his dad’s so harshly that she winces again. The tendrils of light surround the two of them, both piercing Yondu and keeping him apart from his son. She knows that the pained and scarred screams in the air will forever haunt her thoughts. 

 

“Look at him, Peter. Look at the pain you’ve caused this man.” Ego, she learns, the biological Father of the guardians’ beloved leader has returned. He seems satisfied with the scene in front of him. It’s clear by the smile on his face and by the spring in his step that everything is going according to plan. 

 

Peter finally stops his noises. He stiffens more out of anger than fear at the voice filed with taunt. The tendrils of light keep him from getting close to either of them but the want to do so is even clearer than Ego’s intentions. “You couldn’t get enough, couldn’t you?” He says harshly, hate seething into each word. “You killed my mom and now you want to kill my dad too.”

 

Ego flinches at the title Yondu is given. The spring in his step disappears as he walks up to the lighted cage Peter is trapped within. “I’m killing the monster that abducted you. He was and never will be your father.  _ I  _ am who created you, Peter. How is that so hard to understand?”

 

“Because it’s not fucking true!” Peter yells in response. His hands bury themselves in the light surrounding him, grasping them like bars. “You may have helped at conceiving me but I will never call you my dad,” he points behind him, eyes averting as if he was scarred at what he’d see. “That guy there may have abducted me but at least he didn’t murder my mother like you did. He took me  _ in, _ dammit! Even after he figured out what the hell you were doing.”

 

Ego snarls. “Oh, really? And what about the part where he beat you up and forced you to fight. And when he threatened to eat you, was  _ that _ being a parent to you?”

 

“It was him trying and  _ not _ failing like you might think,” Peter quirks with a small smile despite the sadness in his black eyes. The gurgling behind him is just as haunting as the repetition of  _ take my hand _ he heard when he was still eight-years-old. “He was the -- _ ngh--  _ coolest dad I could ever ask for,” he manages to say through his struggle. He’s trying to turn around completely so he can get back to the only thing that matters to him at the moment, saving his real father, but he finds that he can’t. There are thick, blue tendrils of light wrapping around his chest and ankles, keeping him in place. The only thing he can see from his stance is the hideous and revolting thing that is his sperm-donor. 

 

“I’m not going to let you see him one last time. Though, the sight is quite gruesome. It would really help me in proving my point that I cannot be stopped,” Ego explains as he scratches at the hair on his chin. “The expansion will go on, son. And I think that wiping that  _ a-hole _ from your memory would be the most preferable and effective thing to do.”

 

Both Peter’s and Wanda’s stomachs drop at those final words. Wanda knows that he will not get the full experience of living in a world where Yondu is nothing but a forgotten memory but the thought is enough to even fill  _ her _ with fear. 

 

“ _ You maniacal, cold-hearted jackass! _ ” Peter screams. His throat is raw and hoarse from all the previous yelling but he needs Ego to hear that.  _ What are you doing, Pete. Talk to your dad while you still can _ . He blinks and begins to shout louder, hoping that Yondu can at least comprehend what he’s saying. “Dad,  _ dad if you can hear me _ . I-- I’m sorry for being a shitty son all those years and I hope you can forgive me for that, but right now I need you to know that I---” Peter’s breath catches on an unwanted sob. He feels pathetic crying but he finds it impossible to try and control. “ _ I love you _ , you big ol’ smurf. And even if Ego gets his way, I’ll never stop doing it.”  _ Even if you hate me for it. Even if you decide to push me away. _

 

He ignores the flinch that racks through Ego’s body. He also ignores the fact that said maniac is storming towards him, palm stretched out and ready to do it’s bidding of erasing Yondu from his memory. Instead, Peter chooses to pay attention to the small, crackling voice behind him. 

 

“ _ I, I--” _

 

Peter sucks in his breath and another sob escapes him.  _ Even if it makes both of us soft. _

 

“ _ I love--” _ _ Even if it hurts to do. Even if you die.  _

 

The voice stops and Peter tries to move back, to give Yondu more time before Ego gets to him. The grey-haired man is stalking closer, palm beginning to glow a horrible shade of blue. 

 

_ It’s too late,  _ Peter thinks as he finds himself being pulled forwards and his skin tingling like it had when he was first used as a living battery. But just before Ego touches him, just before everything goes white, he hears it: “ _ I love you too, boy.” _

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t wake up with Ego’s face right in front of him as he’d expected. He wakes up with Gamora’s and with every memory of Yondu still intact. He isn’t sure whether to punch something or cry. His eyes frantically scan his surroundings: buildings, shattered windows, Iron man, Captain America, and a teenage Groot. 

 

_ The battle _ . 

 

Peter’s never been so confused in his life. 

 

He tries to say something smart or ask what the hell happened to him but all that escapes his lips is a silent whine. Gamora’s eyes widen above him and she says something he can’t understand to the team. It’s when he’s being checked for injuries by Dr. Cho that he realizes he’s exhausted. The skin around his eyes burns as if he’d had them open for too long and his throat feels as if he’d chugged a bucket of boiling water all in one go. 

 

“He’s fine in the physical sense,” he hears Helen say. 

 

“What do you mean by that?” Gamora insists, desperation clear in the tone of her voice. 

 

Above him, Helen’s face crumbles. He assumes he should be afraid of what she’ll say but the only fear he feels is towards what he had experienced only seconds ago. The sight of Yondu dying in a crueler way and that of Ego storming towards him with an outstretched palm remain permanently engraved in his thoughts. It’s hard to think of anything else. “He has too much brain activity,” she explains. “Too much to be normal, to be  _ contained _ by an average human. Of course, Mr. Quill is not  _ completely _ human but enough that it’s critical that he no longer participate in today’s mission.”

 

“What could have caused so much activity?” 

 

Peter recognizes the voice as Dr. Banner.

 

“I’m afraid this might have to with a vision being transferred through magic,” Dr. Helen says cautiously. She pauses and then adds, “Similar to Wanda’s abilities.” The air, even through Peter’s state, goes tense. He hears Gamora stop in her harsh breathing and Dr. Banner pace back and forth through the countless amounts of rubble. 

 

After seconds of unnecessary silence, Iron man asks; “Has anyone been in contact with scarlet witch?”

 

The girl. The one with orange hair and the giant blue eyes, Peter realizes. He heard of her powers. She had the ability to move things without touching them, manipulating metal with the wave of her hand and she could. . .

 

He couldn’t remember what the last part had been. 

 

“You can’t possibly be hinting at--”

 

“There is no other explanation, Tony,” Dr. Cho answers sternly. “He is most likely traumatized after what he saw. It’s best I take him and the rest of my staff back to Seoul. We will patch him up and keep him rested until he is stable. It would only be dangerous to force him to fight at the moment.”

 

“Wanda would never just go and show someone a vision without a good reason to,” Dr. Banner says. “She may be younger than most of us here but she’s not ignorant, that I know.”

 

“Well it appears Ms. Maximoff did so, good reason or not, against her will or not,” Dr. Cho answers. “The damage, however the case may be, has been done. I’m sorry but Peter Quill can no longer fight today.”

Peter wants to say that he still can. He really does. But his limbs ache, his eyes feel like water faucets and his throat still hurts like a bitch. If he fights he might end up seeing Yondu again sooner than expected and not in a ‘magical’ sort of way.

 

“I agree with Dr. Cho,” Gamora explains. She bites her bottom lip and glances down at him. “I cannot see Peter getting hurt a second time. The rest of the guardians will go on without him.”

 

“Thank you, Gamora. My team will take very good care of him,” Helen says with a gentle smile. 

 

Ten minutes later Peter finds himself on a helicopter, strapped onto a bed to keep him from rolling around in his sluggish state. He groans at the pain in his arms and the air-sickness that threatens to bubble up in his stomach. The flight to Seoul is a quiet one, other than the loud noise the fins make and the harsh breathing Peter can’t help but produce. Red spots dance across his vision, taunting him, luring him into the type of slumber that makes him want to scream. He tries to fight it, to yell for help, but once he sees Yondu’s face on the other side, grinning from ear to ear, he can’t help but succumb.

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

They find Wanda two weeks after Thanos is defeated. Her body is found on the same helicopter owned by SHIELD to transport Peter and Helen Cho’s crew. Her face is pale, body broken in every way that shouldn’t be humanly possible. The most graphic damage is the one done to her head. It’s crushed in all places, face almost unrecognizable by the way it was practically deflated. 

 

Peter does not take the explanation quite well as they had intended him to. He does not attend the funeral. He does not meet with the so-called ‘Vision’ to tell him that he’s sorry for his loss. 

 

Each night he’s monitored by the local hospital located near Busan, and every other night he wakes up screaming. The last vision he’d been shown was another version of Yondu dying, another where Ego erases his memory and makes him watch every second of the torture done to his dad’s body. Wanda had been able to manipulate time as well, they learn, when she makes Peter experience almost a week of being his sperm-donor’s slave. Ego would call him disgusting names and discipline him for the smallest of things. He had treated Peter like a child and like a traitor all at the same time.

 

When he had allowed Peter to rest from being used as both a battery and a slave, he would show him Yondu’s death over and over again until the ginger had had no choice but to beg him to stop. Ego, obviously, had not taken his begging as enough and had continued to show him the clip over and over again. 

 

“We are going to try and get your mind to forget what you saw,” Dr. Cho tells him one day when he’s staring up at the blank ceiling of his hospital room. “We have created a new type of machine that should if our results are correct, enhance your thoughts just enough that those we want to remove will be pushed out.”

 

Peter nods dumbly, his blank expression faltering only slightly when the thought of his mind being erased comes back to him. He shifts his head so that it rests against his own shoulder and looks towards her.

 

She smiles. “We have enough power to erase all she showed you. However, I do need to know if there’s a chance you do not want to forget everything,” Helen explains. 

 

“There’s---,” The ginger pauses and lets out a loud, cough. He offers her a shaky smile to rid her of her concern. “There’s something I don’t want to forget, actually.”

 

“That’s fine with me, Mr. Quill. Just as long as you are sure.”

 

His smile widens, lips twitching as he does so. “I’m sure.”

  
  
  
  


Two days later, his mind is clear again and he no longer feels fear whenever he closes his eyes. He does, however, remember one thing that stands out between all he has gone through in his lifetime on both Earth and space--- a certain someone saying that they love him. He chooses to put the memory alongside another, the one where his mom tells him she loves him for the last time. 

 

For Peter, both memories are just as precious, despite their dark origins. And for Wanda, he only wishes two things for. That she tells Yondu that he loves him too and that she finally rest from Thanos’ wrath.

 

It’s the least she and Peter can both do for each other.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Any thoughts, concerns, or requests? Comment below. And yes, I know I'm really slow with things. The next chapter of "The one where Steve gets jealous and Tony doesn't notice" is currently being finished. Hopefully (if my teachers permit) It'll be posted soon.
> 
> Thanks, --Anderson ;O


End file.
